“I don’t know.” The flannel wrapped her again. She didn’t care where anything was in a world inexplicably emptied of Margot.

Jill looked everywhere for the cocoa, even, apparently, the bathroom. But she must have found it, because soon a mug of hot cocoa was thrust into Betsy’s hands.

“Drink this.” It was an order.

Betsy drank. And to her surprise, in a few minutes she was helplessly sleepy. Jill walked her into her bedroom, helped her undress and get into pajamas, tucked her in. Betsy tried to ask a question but instead fell into a black pit.

“She okay alone up there?” asked Mike.

“I put a couple of sleeping pills into her cocoa,” said Jill. “She’s good for a while. What’s the situation?” She shivered against the chill and damp night air—she’d come out only in jeans and a white T-shirt—and glanced into the brightly lit store, where people moved in the routine of a crime-scene investigation.

“It looks like she interrupted a burglar, all right. Cash drawer broken into. And since there’s no calculator, I assume it was taken. Did she use a computer?”

“Yes, but it’s upstairs,” said Jill. “In her bedroom. And she emptied that cash drawer every night.”

“Maybe that’s why he trashed the place. Pissed because there was nothing of any value to steal.”

“Little he knew. Those hand-painted canvases over there cost a lot of money.”

The curiosity that’d gotten Mike Malloy promoted from patrol to investigation stirred. He glanced toward where Jill was looking, at the white dresser near the front door. “No kidding?”

“Of course, I don’t think there’s much call for hot needlepoint canvases; eighty percent of the women who buy them wouldn’t know where to find a fence, and the rest don’t know what a fence is.”

The interest faded. “I wonder why our burglar picked this shop in the first place,” grumbled Mike. “It’s not like it’s a jewelry store, watches in the window, diamonds in the safe. And even more, I wonder why Mrs. Berglund decided to confront him.”

“Territorial imperative, maybe.”

Mike squinted at Jill, who didn’t crack a smile. He gave a dismissive shrug and said, “Well, I better get back to it. You gonna stay?”

“No, I’m back on first watch. Gotta be up pushing my squad first thing in the morning. Mind if I call you about this later?”

“If you got anything of value to tell me, be my guest.”

The phone started ringing early Thursday, first a reporter wanting details, then Irene Potter offering to open the shop—which offer Betsy curtly refused—then another reporter, then someone named Alice who went on and on about how everyone who did needlework would miss her, each word scalding Betsy’s heart. When the woman slowed enough that Betsy could get a word in, Betsy thanked her through clenched teeth and hung up. Before it could ring again, she took the receiver off the hook. And she discovered that no one buzzed at the door more than three times before going away. She spent the entire day watching television, stupid show after stupid show. She didn’t turn the lights on at nightfall, but sat up for hours in the darkness. But she did not cry. At three A.M. she put the phone back on the hook and went to bed.